It was a visit to a bygone era. We ran across one of those stoner stores in Santa Fe. It was loaded with hemp and post cards and bumper stickers, but, I am sorry to say, no lava lamps. Among the treasures I found were a post card of a grandma with over-sized glasses as grandmas tend to wear, a delightful smile, and a sticker affixed to her blouse that says “Fuck your war.”
Another is a bumper sticker with words by Abbie Hoffman:
You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
That’s a well-known quote. We supposedly have free speech here. Alexander Solzhenitsyn had to come to the U.S. to speak freely … about the Soviet Union. If he had unkind words to say about the U.S., he would have died in obscurity. In the post below, Paul Craig Roberts whined about how he ceased to matter when he became critical of the wrong people.
In this country fame is reserved for actors, athletes and apparatchiks. Dissidents need not apply.
Except … for the curious case of the Tea Baggers. This movement has gained considerable momentum and enjoyed wide publicity on cable news casts and in newspapers. Why does our media not ignore this movement as it does all other dissidents?
I can think of a couple of reasons: One, it is not a spontaneous movement. It is the product of a public relations campaign. This is high-level professional manipulation. (To what end? Violence? To give the appearance of rebellion that covertly achieves other purposes? I don’t know. As with everything else in life, my wisdom will come after the fact.)
Second, the content of the protests, at least what I can make of the gobbledygook, is anti-democratic. Tea Baggers don’t like universal health care or taxation of any sort. They are opposed to “socialism” in much the same way that creationists are opposed to “science.” It is something they don’t understand, but know somehow threatens them.
Tea Baggers are not just dead intellectually, their brains are gone. Watch the manipulators. Why does the phenomenon exist? Why are they not cast out and left to rot away, as our real dissidents are? Why have they been elevated to special status?
One can only guess, and I don’t even have a good guess handy.
Be isolated, be ignored, be attacked, be in doubt, be frightened, but do not be silenced. (Bertrand Russell)
Tea Baggers, heed Russell’s words, be not silenced, but for God’s sake, be not fucking stupid.
Piece of Mindful 
The TP movement sells soap.
Sometimes Billy Occam is the right guide.
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That explains too little. Are you a journalist by chance? I’m curious because you use Occam to shut down inquiry, almost as if by reflex. The thing I notice most about American journalists is an incurious nature.
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Mark, I can’t agree with your assessment of the Tea Party.
First, it is grass roots. There is no center of control that is creating the message. It is a message that resonates from the grassroots themselves.
It is a movement outside the Beltway. Thus, no one in Washington cares – Dems or Reps.
http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/ruaKeIMmBiV4
Bloomberg has conducted a scientifically valid poll of over 1,000 people. The results are unbelievable.
Over a quarter of Americans now identify with the Tea Party movement.
This movement did not exist as recently as December 2008.
This has come out of nowhere, The Web, the 2008 Bush bailouts, and Obama’s health care bill have created a major political voting bloc.
Look at the opinion on whether the USA is moving toward socialism. A staggering 58% say it is.
Public opinion normally changes slowly. This change represents a major shift in public opinion. It has taken place in less than 18 months.
The politicians are ignoring this.
The Tea Party people are focused on money: the deficit, the bailouts, health care, and taxes. They are hawks on spending.
But there is a lack of fear by incumbents and will keep them as big spenders. It always has. It always will.
The Tea Party, with no party to turn to, will express their energy somehow, somewhere.
Expect the USA to fragment politically and geographically.
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Sorry, but I’ve been around PR a bit too long to be taken in by such manipulation. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the movement members, though I haven’t yet found a coherent philosophy among them. The buses that took them to health care rallies last summer were not free. The movement itself was spawned by FreedomWorks and Dick Armey, heavily financed by corporate cash, notably tobacco.
People are malleable, especially Americans, as they uneducated and hopelessly beguiled by TV news, even the best of which is lightweight mindless patriotism. It should be no surprise that these people make no sense.
That they are angry? I get that. That they don’t know who to be angry at? I get that too. That they are pointed like a loaded gun by PR gurus? You don’t get that.
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PS- “Yellow ribbons” were not spontaneous either. Just sayin’.
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Don’t expect to.
They are a leaderless grassroots revolution.
They are held together by a common demand to reduce government – especially government spending.
They all have different plans – hence the lack of single coherency – but they are a force if (or when) such leadership finds them.
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Re: Yellow Ribbons
And yet, they changed the entire perspective of the military.
Before the yellow ribbons, they spit on returning soldiers.
After….. no matter how they died they were claimed hero’s.
Underestimating the power of leaderless movements has collapsed almost every empire.
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I am referring to the 1979 propaganda campaign wherein the US public was rallied to support hostages taken by Iran during the overthrow of the US-supported government there. The yellow ribbons were a symbol of persecution of US citizens by a horrible foreign government. So we believed. Tony Orlando and Dawn even sang a song about it.
I’m testing your age here.
Is that what you are talking about?
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You win.
The yellow ribbons morphed from the display due to the “Iranian hostages” to ” a hope of return of hero’s”.
It is – as you pointed – the twist and turn of “Revolution in the Form” up front and center.
You scored! Nice shot, Mark (upper left corner, glove hand)
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Media, and the “system” cannot function without an opposition, real or make belive. Republicans have no credibility as “the opposition.” One must be substituted until they regain credibility. This is what triangulation produces. Democrats have left nothing for Republicans to be for. Everything between “no” and “me too” has been seized.
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Now that makes sense.
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